1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image collation device, which is applied, for example, as a fingerprint collation device. In the present invention, an image collation device records linear images in a memory means, and judges a collation target image with reference to these linear images, thereby it is possible to collate an image with a simple structure.
2. Description of the Related Art
Heretofore, in the conventional fingerprint collation device using an image collation device of this sort, featured points such as branch point and cut (referred to as featured point hereinafter) are extracted from a fingerprint image obtained by means of an image pick-up device, and fingerprint collation is performed with reference to these featured points.
In other words, in the conventional fingerprint collation device, a fingerprint to be collated is previously converted to database with reference to, for example, featured points and coordinate values. A fingerprint image to be subjected to fingerprint collation is subjected to image processing in order to extract featured points. Then, a database has an access to the extracted featured points and the fingerprint is collated based on the existence of corresponding featured points.
The conventional fingerprint collation is disadvantageous in that it takes a long time to find featured points and fingerprint collation takes a long time. If fingerprint collation is carried out consistently within a short time, the fingerprint collation device provides improved convenience for use, and such improvement is desirable.
An alternative method that involves fingerprint collation based on image data instead of finger print collation based on featured point has been considered to solve such problem. According to this method, the time required to extract featured points is eliminated, and the time required for fingerprint collation is shortened.
However, for fingerprint collation based on image data, it is required to construct finger print image database, the fingerprint image database should have a large structure. Such database requires a memory means having a large capacity. The large capacity results in a complex whole structure, and such complex structure is a problem.
The present invention is accomplished to solve such problem, and provides an image collation device which is capable of collating an image such as fingerprint with a simple structure.